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Iconic Paris Quotes

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Aah, Paris. The city of light has inspired poets and artists for centuries, with its iconic art and architecture, cafe culture and air of romance. To continue our love affair with the city (as seen in our Paris special issue this week), we've rounded up the most memorable bon mots that immortalize Gay Paree, from poems and famous film lines, to the words of great men and women.

"I first came to Paris one year ago. It was 1899, the summer of love. I knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler or Satine. The world had been swept up in the Bohemian Revolution. And I travelled from London to be a part of it."

Christian (played by Ewan McGregor), types these words as the 2001 film opens.

"It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction - every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour."

"Paris is the only city where you can step out of a railway station —and see, the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs Elysees—what other city offers as much as you leave a train? "

Margaret was an editor and publisher known for bringing poets Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot to the USA.

"Oh I hated New York - that Park Avenue crowd - so I fled to Paris to work on my book, and I was always going to this cafe with Jean-Jacques, and Dickie used to play his saxophone outside and I would see him and he would see me, and he would play My Funny Valentine. It wasn't until later that I realised he only knows about six songs."

These words are spoken by Marge (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) in the 1999 film.

"Yes, it was too late, and Sabina knew she would leave Paris, move on, and on again, because were she to die here they would cover her up with a stone, and in the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable."